"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Thursday, July 07, 2016

Another Man's Freedom Fighter

Would it be too much trouble at all for someone, anyone in the Responsible Corporate Media to ask the once and future Kanzler von Clownstick about this weird admiration he professes for various and sundry strongmen?

More to the point, his most recent burble about how Saddam Hussein -- Saddam Fucking Hussein! -- really knew how to take care of terrorists, what precisely does he think Saddam considered a "terrorist"? This is where Clownstick's pig-blind stupidity becomes not only a thing of wonder, but a thing of danger.

This is all of a pattern, the (for now) impotent threats to shut down the nation's fourth-largest (and the national capital's largest) newspaper; the empty promise to "toughen" the nation's non-existent libel laws (libel laws, of course, vary by state, but to Mister Man that's a difference without a distinction, except States' Rights, amirite?); the refusal when asked to bear witness to Vladimir Putin's track record of murdering dissidents and journalists; the long-ago admiration for the Chinese government's role in the Tiananmen Square massacre of its own citizens; the North Korean regime's ability to run a tight ship; and now, Saddam's brutality against "terrorists".
So who in the media will point out to this willful, poisonous fucktard that the "terrorists" Saddam murdered were not suicide bombers, were not radicalized Islamist fanatics strapped up with vests made of Semtex and ball bearings and nails. They were dissident clans in restive areas of the country; they were rebellious Kurds and Shias, some of whom the US supported at times; they were inner-party apparatchiks and generals and colonels whom Saddam thought might challenge him one day; they were the losing soccer team in an international competition; they were college students who read a book that was disapproved of. Or they were related to one of those people, or were just suspected of being one of those people. That there might occasionally have been an actual al Qaeda member or some such is purely incidental.

The thing about every strongman in history is that not one of them, nor the vicious thugs they employed to do the actual wetwork, gave half a shit whether anyone they killed or tortured actually committed a crime, any crime at all, much less the crime they were stamped with in whatever kangaroo court legitimized their brutal fates. Under such a system, everyone is guilty of something, even if it's just thinking about something that is forbidden, even it's something that they just haven't done yet. That is how the scumbags of the world justify torturing and murdering people they know to be innocent of any actual crime. That is how they have always done it.

Murder and torture under totalitarian regimes and failed states are not meant as punishment in the conventional sense -- they are explicitly intended to instill fear and assure compliance. You won't just "behave" yourself, you'll make sure to drop a dime on anyone who isn't behaving, who even looks like they might be up to something. If need be, you'll even fabricate something, calumniate your neighbors, pre-emptively strike against a workplace rival. Anything to keep your own door from being the next to fall to the heavy boots of the secret police.

It was estimated that by the early 1990s, as many as one-eighth of the Iraqi population was connected to or informing for the various "internal security" groups. That is staggering to even contemplate, and one can just imagine in such a situation what the signal-to-noise ratio must have been, how many actual crimes were reported in the midst of false accusations and political paranoia. When all the informants are reporting on each other, it's all bullshit, and the butchers and bureaucrats know it. They don't care; there is a quota for such things, and the boss wants to see the numbers.

A responsible journalist -- if such a creature exists -- needs to ask Drumpf at the next available opportunity to provide a single clear example of Saddam Hussein eliminating any individual that any reasonable American would consider a terrorist. Just one. Hussein reigned with impunity for a quarter-century, and countless people met their fates in his dungeons and gallows and firing squads. It should be easy to provide such an example.

But they'll never ask, and even if they do, he'll dodge the question, like he always does, like he always has. This is just another thing in a long line where Drumpf has no idea what the fuck he's talking about, but this happens to be a relevant and dangerous thing. It's not clear even contextually why he brought it up in the first place. He's been doing it for quite some time, and it should have been addressed before. Certainly it's convenient for the HFC campaign that it's being focused on now.

While we dither and dick around over whether or not Drumpf is a racist or an anti-Semite, the fact is clear that he is an authoritarian, a longtime admirer of unaccountable strongmen who commit atrocities against their own citizens. He's a fucking fascist, with the moral foundation of a serial killer, and it's about goddamned time someone does their job and calls him on it before we all pay the price.